


Hi, My name is Battleship Condescension

by captorvatiing



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human/Troll Society, Group Therapy, Helmsman Support Group, Post-Sburb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-13
Updated: 2015-05-13
Packaged: 2018-03-30 09:46:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3932206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captorvatiing/pseuds/captorvatiing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Welcome to Helmsman Support! It’s great to see you all here again, and a few new faces with us this week too, hello.” He’s probably talking to you but when you don’t answer he moves on. “So we’re just going to start off with introductions and then there’s going to be an opportunity to share.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hi, My name is Battleship Condescension

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [One of Our Submarines](https://archiveofourown.org/works/341204) by [VastDerp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VastDerp/pseuds/VastDerp). 



> In the skype chat we were talking about post-game Signless crew interacting with people who kept the cult going and naturally I brought up Helmsmen and the [Submarines](http://archiveofourown.org/works/341204/chapters/552441) network because I am nothing if not incredibly predictable and borderline obsessive. At the same time Dogslug posted [this](http://dogslug.tumblr.com/post/117302977960/shrugs-idk) which was basically a sign from the helmsman gods or, alternately, the icing on my obssession cake. So I shat this out. Good work team. 
> 
> This is kind of silly, but hopefully it's cute.

So, here you are, sat on a too small plastic chair that was almost definitely designed with humans in mind, staring at the blank name badge in your lap. Around you several other trolls shift awkwardly in similarly shitty seats with their name badges hooked around their wrists or necks. You look across at the troll opposite you. She’s got deep brown black scars under her eyes and across the bridge of her nose and the name badge that hangs over her denim dungarees says “Hi, my name is Freighter ATLAS” in neat loopy handwriting. She smiles when she sees you looking and blinks bright blue eyes. You tug your hood a little further down your face and your shades further up your nose and look away.

You really don’t want to be here. You were perfectly fine refusing to deal with your problems while sitting on your ass at home thank you very much, but Disciple had disagreed. This whole thing is, objectively and without doubt, a fucking terrible idea and you are going to have an awful time.

When the seats have all filled up a perky young teal blood with horns that curve out like a smile stands up. He beams around at you all and claps his hands.

“Right!” He says. “Welcome to Helmsman Support! It’s great to see you all here again, and a few new faces with us this week too, hello.” He’s probably talking to you but when you don’t answer he moves on. “So we’re just going to start off with introductions and then there’s going to be an opportunity to share.” 

“Share?” Says an elderly troll with no colours on their clothes.

“Just talk about our experiences-”

“Not your experiences.” They grouse. You like them already.

“...No. I’m just here as a facilitator, to make sure everyone feels comfortable sharing and gets their turn.” The group leader shifts from foot to foot and abruptly turns to the other side of the circle. “So! Introductions. My names Steven, but ah. Gregor would you like to start us off properly?”

The troll he nodded to stands up and his knees catch on his seat so that the metal legs squeak across the linoleum floor. He just sighs, like he’s used to it. His hands hang awkwardly at his sides.

“I’m Gregor, I was a helmsman for fourteen sweeps. My designation was Cruiser Marnie, I know some of you know it.” He smiles sheepishly down at the boy next to him, who laughs through this nose and stands up. Gregor sits down.

“Hi.” Says the boy. “I’m Spikke and I was a helmsman for six sweeps.” God, he barely looks twelve. “My designation was Cruiser Riflekind.”

They go around like that, introducing themselves by name first and then ship designation. They’re all small classes, privately owned most likely. The biggest so far is a destroyer, but not one important enough for you to recognise. It’s strange to you, that these wrigglers have friends among each other, that they flew together and knew each other by designation. You were much too big and too old and too far away for any of that nonsense. You idly wonder what happened to Dreadnaught Big Top, but you figure whoever got assigned to that mess had their pan scrambled up like cluckbeast eggs a long time ago so it probably doesn’t matter. It’s not like you were on speaking terms with any of them in the first place but it would be nice, you think, to talk to someone who’s understanding is on at least a similar scale. You’re busy nightdreaming when the person next to you taps your shoulder and you jump.

“Oh.” You say. “I don’t-” 

Your hands tighten around nothing and you bite your tongue. You can’t tell them, you just can’t. Your name sticks in your throat and you can’t hear it without feeling cold breath against your ear and a shiver down your spine. Your designation is far more comfortable, but it’s too different. You’re not like them. Steven sets up some vague encouragements, trying to convince you that there will be no judgement here but there are too many eyes on you and you just shake your head until he moves on.

“That’s ok!” He says, only a touch disappointed. “You don’t have to share anything you don’t want to.” 

They move on and you only half listen as the familiar weight of guilt sinks to the bottom of your lungs. They circle back to the start and Gregor starts sharing and you don’t really care so you’re not really listening. He drones on about meeting Riflekind and how they made fun of him for having such a girly designation (named for his owner’s moirail most likely) and how it was important to him that they had that connection and blah blah blah. You don’t want to be the bitter asshole, you really don’t. But if there were ships who kept their minds they never got out to _you_ and it’s hard to make yourself sympathise with their relationship problems when you have, well, bigger fish to fry. 

Spikke is turning something over in his hands when talks. “Yeah, the network really helped.” He says. What network? You frown at the dirt under your claws. “I wish we knew who psi was.” Your head snaps up. “I owe them, hah,” he holds a hand out to Gregor who threads their fingers together. “Everything really.” 

And you remember.

In the beginning, somewhere around the first few hundred sweeps when it was already clear that Meenah wasn’t going to let you alone you’d been desperate for something to do and too stubborn to let go of His teachings you’d fucked around with the system. You’d scribbled his name across the empire until you mapped a space you could work with and slowly but surely you pulled all the bits together into something functional. It was depressing, ultimately. Most of the ships you managed to hook up to your little hidden system were already mad or worse, they’d let the compliance programming fill the cracks and just threatened to report you over and over until you booted them. There were one or two who stayed, who were lucid and patient enough to listen to you talk about Signless and his vision for the future. Over the sweeps, with the help of more than a few Sufferist engineers as well as the helmsmen, you built the network up into something that you didn’t have to moderate constantly. It was still hard though. There were more failed attempts to connect than there were viable ones and honestly after a while the voices constantly pinging you got irritating, especially as the Signless’ teachings were warped into something unrecognisable over time and you grew sick of arguing. So you cut them off. You cut yourself off and shunted it to a back burner, only bothering to tweak the security every now and then out of some twisted sense of duty. 

It never occurred to you that they might claim that space for themselves, that back in the home system there might be helmsmen who were connected from installation, who had a network of support to keep them from becoming the dribbling wrecks that you’d known in the beginning. None of them would ever have to be alone.

The girl with the dungarees pipes in. “That was how I was introduced to the-” She hesitates, her eyes darting from side to side, lowers her voice, “the Sufferer’s teachings. I never thought, I mean. Before that I was just some shitblood slated for the helm y’know? I never thought anyone would see me as a real troll.” 

There’s murmurs of agreement all round. Trolls nodding their heads and touching their chests. One of them makes the irons symbol with his hands and they’re all laughing and you stand up so fast your chair clatters a few feet behind you. 

Steven tilts his head at you, masking his nerves with concern, and the murmuring drops abruptly into silence.

You make a noise like you’ve been stepped on and the words come out of your mouth before you can stop them. “My name’s- I don’t have a name and I’ve been a helmsman for- was a helmsman for ten thousand sweeps that I counted and my designation--” You swallow and try to ground the sparks around your horns. “I am- was the Battleship Condescension.” You say. “But most people call me Psi.” 

Gregor’s frowning at you carefully and the girl, ATLAS, is looking at you with her eyebrows so far up her forehead they might make an escape. The facilitator doesn’t know what to do, most likely he doesn’t really understand what you just said and what that means, he’s just eying you warily with one hand out at waist height like he was considering asking you to stop. You banish the shades to your sylladex and meet their eyes as defiantly as you can manage when you’re shaking all over. Your face is marked with deep lines where the goggles cut uncomfortably into your skin and your eyes are flashing fitfully every time you blink.

“I made the network.” You say. “When I- After Signless… I didn’t want him to be- didn’t want to be forgotten. I didn’t want it to be forgotten. I’m sorry.” 

Spikke looks like he might try to kiss you and you take a step back.

Eventually a troll who you’re fairly sure introduced themselves as Milenko who twitches every time she reaches a pause in her sentences breaks the stunned silence.

“Welcome to the group Psi.” She says. 

It doesn’t really matter that they’re all so small, so young compared to you. They remember you even if you never spoke to any of them and they’re excited to hear from you. Despite the differences in your experiences they sympathise with your stories and you with theirs. You all know the frustrations of being dragged into warp at inconvenient moments, and the horror of getting a newbie admin and seeing them declare that their overhauling your programming. All of you snicker a little at the memory of the petty joy of seeing a new engie’s face when they see the wetware for the first time. You don’t share much just yet, still nervous to draw too much attention to yourself, but they accept you, without question, as one of their own.

After all this time,

You are not alone.


End file.
